Yes, it is definitely ice coffee weather. Since I know there are those of you out there who just cannot go without your daily coffee intake, ice coffee is a wonderful thing to enjoy during these hot summer months. How do I make it, you ask? Let me tell you.

While the general consensus seems to be that when you make ice coffee you just make a pot coffee, put it in the fridge, and when it’s cold add ice and there you go. Without going into the technical mumbo jumbo of why that’s not the best way to do it, I’ll just put it this way: that’s not the best way to do it.

What is the best way to do it, you ask? I have no idea. I havent’ tried every possible way to make ice coffee. But I can tell you the way that I like to make it. Brew your coffee directly onto ice.

That’s right, straight on there. Let me follow that with these notes:

1. You will need to make your coffee a little stronger. How much stronger, you ask? Well that depends on how strong you like it. When I make ice coffee, I brew three cups of water over about two cups of ice and use a little over two ounces of ground coffee. But I measure my coffee by weight. Maybe you use scoops. Try an extra scoop, or half scoop or quarter scoop (depending on the size of the scoop). Play around with it.

2. If your coffee maker uses a glass carafe, you may want to use some other container to brew into. A lot of cold followed by a lot of hot in a glass pot isn’t always the best combination.

If you have a sweet tooth (as I’m sure many of you do) you can try one of these:

This is my friend Annie enjoying a delicious bag (yes bag) of ice coffee in Vietnam. Now in Vietnam (as well as Cambodia and Thailand) you get your ice coffee in a neat little to-go bag. They also add a nice big spoonful of sweetened condensed milk on the ice before the coffee goes on. Try it at home, it’s a tasty summer treat! Peace.